After years of countless reports, community support and Byron Council staff time spent, Byron Shire will not have a natural burial ground any time soon.
A report in the May 23 Council agenda says investigations into landowners prepared to have one on their land were unsuccessful, with not one application.
While Council-managed Vallances Road land, near Mullum, was proposed, staff said it was ‘not considered appropriate owing to significant site constraints and costs to support an inclusive and accessible cemetery’.
The report says, ‘Council is facing increasing costs to maintain existing cemeteries, and is faced with limited land for future expansion of cemeteries. Based on experience of natural burials in Lismore, take up in Byron Shire is estimated at no more than three plots per annum’.
Councillors resolved last Thursday to note the ‘limitations within available Council cemetery land and budgets to develop a natural burial ground’.
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